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CHICAGO, November 26, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Observers say the killing of Mary Stachowicz, 51, a Catholic who had talked to 19-year-old co-worker Nicholas Gutierrez about his sexual orientation prior to her first-degree murder, should be treated as a “hate crime.” Gutierrez has been charged with the murder.  “We condemn this murder, like we do all murders,” said Laura Montgomery Rutt of Soulforce, a homosexual activist group. “A hate crime needs to have an intent to intimidate a whole class of people. If in this case, it was directed at this person and intended to intimidate Christians, that would be a hate crime in my mind.”  Media have not covered Mrs. Stachowicz’s murder to nearly the extent that they did the 1998 beating death of homosexual student Matthew Shepard—prompting Peter LaBarbera of the Culture and Family Institute to say there is a “politically correct hierarchy of victims, and at the top of the list are gay victims.”  Catholic League president William Donohue says Stachowicz’s fate “demonstrate[s] the utter futility of hate crime legislation,” which he called useless” and “politically corrupt.” According to Donohue, “Mary asked, ‘Why do you [have sex with] boys instead of girls?’ This was enough to provoke Gutierrez to mutilate her with a knife, place a plastic garbage bag over her head, strangle her and then jam her body in a crawl space… The fact is she was murdered for having a Catholic-informed conscience.”  To read Washington Times coverage see:  https://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20021126-72638468.htm